My ballet class is held in a ground-floor studio with a picture window that looks out on a back lane. The other day, the teacher fell about laughing. He teases us, but he is not a cruel man, certainly not by ballet standards, and I didn’t expect he was laughing…

Last weekend, I marked the change of season in three different but equally significant ways: I wore shoes for the first time since October, instead of boots. I exchanged my heavy Swedish winter coat for my ‘summer coat’ (surely an oxymoron) and I even went for a run wearing only…

After a 27-day Italian streak on Duolingo, I have given up. I simply got bored: after a month, I should be having little conversations, not still drilling I cavalli bevono latte and Gli elefanti leggono il libro. This adventure on Duolingo, which is more a time-filling twiddle than a serious…

My flat has no carpet. This pleased me from the start. I’ve had a variety of landlord carpet in my time as a tenant, including a thick synthetic shag that harboured yellowed and horny crescents of toenail, a stomach-churning discovery. It was best not to look too closely into the…